Somewhat depressing

I have been prompted by the newsletter published by DANA (see reference 1) to think about our world's policies regarding what are loosely called drugs, mind altering substances. In which context we usually exclude alcohol, caffeine and nicotine, but usually include marijuana, cocaine and heroin.

It seems that the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS) held in April 2016 prompted the establishment of the Johns Hopkins–Lancet Commission on Drug Policy and Health, which published its report in April 2016, in time for UNGASS.

The publicly available commission report (54 pages, reference 2) documents all kinds of things terribly wrong with the world's current approach to drugs, mostly involving severe (and mostly ineffective) criminalisation of both possession and supply - and while recognising that not many more legislatures are going to decriminalise drugs any time soon (both Portugal and the Czech Republic did so some years ago, with good results), it does recommend a much softer approach. The management summary at the front is reasonably accessible, while the body of the report smells of committees and bureaucracy. And some of the statistical charts therein are a bit tricky.

While the publicly available UNGASS report (24 pages, reference 3), the top of the first page of which is snapped above, is completely impenetrable, although it does manage to give the impression that it is not recommending any substantial or significant change in the current stance on these matters. I suppose it is inevitable that the written results of a large multi-national quango such as the UN are going to be rather heavy going, but they might have done a bit more to ease the way for the concerned citizen.

I have no idea whether the UNGASS people read the commission report and I don't recall seeing any coverage of all this in the media at the time, but that might just be my memory. But I do share a few snippets, mostly lifted from from the commission report via the DANA newsletter.

There is a pain killer out there called OxyContin widely promoted by its manufacturer Purdue Pharma as a safe alternative to opioid painkillers. Prescribed, at least in the US, on a massive scale, probably relieving quite a lot of pain, but probably also resulting in much addiction, either to the drug itself or to the rather cheaper opioid alternatives, this despite the legality of the one and the illegality of the other.

'The pursuit of drug prohibition has generated a parallel economy run by criminal networks. Both these networks, which resort to violence to protect their markets, and the police and sometimes military or paramilitary forces that pursue them contribute to violence and insecurity in communities affected by drug transit and sales. In Mexico, the striking increase in homicides since the government decided to use military forces against drug traffickers in 2006 has been so great that it reduced life expectancy in the country'.

'One of the greatest impacts of pursuit of drug prohibition identified by the Commission with respect to infectious disease is the excessive use of incarceration as a drug-control measure'.

Black citizens of the US are five times more likely to be put in prison for drug offences than white citizens, although the propensity to consume drugs is much the same in both communities.

While women do worse than men, probably because they tend to be lower down the drug hierarchies and so are not in a good position to cut a deal with their captors.

Nearly half the huge number of people in jail in the US are there for drugs offences, and 80% of those are to do with possession rather than supply.

A lot of countries allow their police to crack down on the possession of paraphernalia, particularly syringes, even when such possession is not in itself an offence. Some crack down on the customers of support centres in an effort to boost arrest rates. All of which results in a lot more unsafe needle use and the avoidable spread of disease.

Policy remains focussed on eradicating drugs, despite the fact that people have been doing them for thousands of years, for most of this time without recourse to criminal justice. Even reindeer do it. That said, let's not forget that these drugs are addictive and, in the round, do a great deal of damage to those addicted - and to those near them.

PS: no mention here, but let's not forget also the vested interest in current policies of all the enforcement and incarceration people who make a living out of them.

Reference 1: http://www.dana.org/.

Reference 2: http://thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)00619-X/fulltext.

Reference 3: http://idpc.net/policy-advocacy/the-un-general-assembly-special-session-on-drugs-ungass-2016.

From grids to objects

This post is the first of what is intended to be a short series, with this one being preparatory in nature. The end-game is a conscious homunculus – for background on which see reference 1.

Suppose we have a grid, a square array of integer values, a large array containing millions of points, thought of as being defined over some small patch of the cortical sheet of a higher animal, probably a human, with those integer values being in the range [0..N] where N is some not very large number, probably less than 20, the number of bands of power of brain waves, at the frequency that we are looking at, that we can reasonably work with in the particular bit of brain that we are looking at.

We are looking for some way of defining objects on our square array, objects which have shape: that is to say they are relatively simple, often convex, always connected regions of the grid. Regions with a boundary and an interior – including here long thin regions which might be considered as lines, or at least linear.

But we do not have the paraphernalia of geometry or of drawing packages, let alone a pencil and paper: all we have to go on is our square array of values, on which we propose to use patterns to define objects, objects which are something like the shapes one can create with Powerpoint. Objects which might well take recognisable shapes: lines, circles, houses and animals.

We suppose that repetition of some sort is the key, partly because we believe neuronal processing to be good at spotting repetition.

In what follows we look at how we might come up with a regime in which such objects might be defined, might be exhibited in some particular state of our grid.

A taster

In the snap (taken from Excel) above, we have used a pattern defined on a three by three square of values and we looked around the grid for repeating patterns in order to build those repeats up into objects, with the idea being that we keep adding squares with the pattern, which conform to the pattern and which touch a square that we have already, until there are no more, until we can go no further. With the proviso that there must be at least two squares to count as an object, for us to be sufficiently confident that we are not just looking at noise. In the snap, we have five objects defined on the one pattern.

Variations might be to allow patterns to be defined on rectangles. To restrict the concept of touching, perhaps to sharing a whole side. To have rules about the size of rectangles, perhaps to exclude the degenerate case of the single point. Or we might loosen things up and allow patterns which nearly repeat, rather than just those which exactly repeat.

Finding the bits of pattern in this snap which do not amount to objects is left as an exercise for the reader.

Some rules

As we suggest above, there are lots of ways of doing this sort of thing, but we want, we need to narrow things down a bit and to pick one. To define the regime that we are going to work with.
We define patterns of points on our grid and we then define a simple process for generating objects from those patterns.

We will base our patterns on small rectangles, probably containing 25 points or less. We imagine that there could be hundreds of patterns of this sort, a lot more than one is likely to want on just one grid. But we will have lots of grids and patterns are to be global.

If we place our pattern on the grid, rather as one might place a window on a waveform, we can say whether or not that patch of grid conforms to the pattern. We will have some more rules about conforming.

We link conforming patches which touch into objects. We will have some more rules about touching.

For any one pattern, we can then partition our grid into zero, one or more disjoint objects taking that pattern, plus a remainder, a background.

If we allow a number of patterns, and we have a rule or a result which says that a point on the grid can only participate in at most one pattern, we can still partition our grid into zero, one or more disjoint objects, with each one taking one of those patterns, plus a remainder, a background.

Sometimes the objects will cover the grid and there will be no background left; or at least the background will have been patterned over – perhaps giving it a texture or a colour. Plus, our objects are labelled by the pattern on which they are built. We call objects built on the same pattern, peer objects.

What rectangles?

In the example above, our rectangle has been a three by three square, giving us 9 points. Other things being equal, the bigger the rectangle the less likely it is that any repetition of our pattern is down to chance. Repetition will nearly always be significant.

On the other hand, it would make things very simple to go down to a single point, a one by one square. This maximises the resolution of our shapes, our objects, but minimises our ability to label them. And maximises the possibility of disturbance, of the creation of false structure, by noise.

We propose allowing rectangles of any shape or size, with the only proviso, as noted above, that they are usually less than around 25 points in all.

In any one pattern, the rectangle, of whatever shape it may be, will always be orientated the same way. In the case of a square, for example, we do not allow rotation of our pattern of values.

We might insist that our rectangles tile the grid in a nice simple way, that we divide the grid into rows and columns which yield cells of the required size. Which might turn out to be a simplification which does not cause too much pain elsewhere – but we have not so insisted in the example illustrated above.

Defining patterns on rectangles

In the example illustrated above, our pattern has been defined by exact match by position. Each point on the square on the grid has to have the right value. This has the virtue of simplicity and it may well be that it is as easy for neurons to pick out such patterns as it is for the eye.

But there might also be merit in loosening things up a bit.

We might allow wild cards. We might say that positions where the pattern has a zero can take any value.

We might say that we just have a list of values and the points in a conforming rectangle must take all of those values, but without caring about position of those values within the rectangle. Such a list might be of the form {2,5,6}, with distinct values, or it might be of the form {3*2,5,3*6}. Here we are saying that our rectangle must contain 3 two’s, 1 five and 3 six’s.

We might allow ranges rather than matches. For example, the point at this position must have a value which is greater than 2 and less than 8.

We might allow a proportion of misses. The patch conforms provided it matches in at least so many of its positions.

Rules about touching

We start with a seed for our object, a rectangle at which we have a conforming pattern. We then grow that seed by adding conforming rectangles which touch one or more of those that we already have. We carry on adding until there are no more to be added. An object is maximal in that sense.

The most strict rule would be to say that two rectangles touch if they share an entire side.

We might weaken that to say that two rectangles touch if they share a good part of a side.

We might weaken that so far as to say it suffices if our two rectangles share a point – thus allowing the diagonal connection at the bottom of the bottom left example above.

It is possible that one could do something with rectangles which overlapped, with one partially overlapping the other. This option is not pursued here.

We believe that rules of this sort will generate well defined objects. That one will, for example, get the same object regardless of the seed chosen to generate it. That one will get the same object regardless of the order in which one adds touching rectangles. We suppose that one could devise candidate regimes for which this was not true.

There would be merit from a touching point of view in using regular hexagons rather than rectangles, but that would complicate things from other points of view and this option is not pursued here.

Our objects have to be connected by touch. But we note the case of a real world object whose mapping onto some two-dimensional bit of space has become disconnected, perhaps a bicycle which happens to have been cut in half by a lamp post in front of it. We will suggest a way to deal with this in one of the posts which follows.

Specifying a pattern

Whatever rules along these lines we come up with for patterns, given those rules, given that regime, it will be possible to specify any pattern by a string of integers, a string of fixed length and format, probably less than 50 integers or so long.

We do not require that all such strings code for valid patterns, but we do require that we can tell which ones do and which ones do not.

These strings will, in some sense, label the objects which are defined on the pattern in question. We might call them the key to the pattern.

Given a grid of values and a regime, we suppose that it would be straightforward to devise an algorithm, to devise code which would search that grid for patterns and objects. It might take a while to run in Visual Basic on a laptop, but it would run. And it could, in principle, run a good deal faster in a brain.

It is possible that we will want to define simple relations between such strings, perhaps to define hierarchies and networks, but we do not pursue that possibility here.

By way of example, suppose our regime consists only of three by three squares with exact match. Then a specification of any pattern conforming to that regime could be specified in a string of nine integers, with each integer specifying the number the pattern took for one of the positions of our square. But remember that this specification of a pattern is regime dependant; you cannot mix or compare patterns from different regimes.

Odds and ends

A pattern might include saying how many repeats one has to have to qualify. So far we have said any repetition is good enough, but we might want to require more in the case of a small pattern, the sort of small pattern which might turn up by chance it what is otherwise noise.

What with one thing and another, we have to allow, at some point, for the possibility of false positives, of repeats in the data which do not carry any meaning, which are not supposed to be there. Which are just noise.

We might find significance in a value, in a power, being big rather than small. While the bins into which power is classified have in the foregoing mostly just been used as labels, much in the way that written labels might be, these bins are also ordered in an obvious way, with this numeric order being something stronger, less conventional than alphabetic ordering: the bins are not just sat around a table, not even a round table. Big bins reflect high arousal and attract attention – but more of this in the posts to come.

There might be a natural partial order on patterns. Such a partial order might map onto sequences such as Judy’s pet rabbit, rabbits in general, furry animals and quadrupeds.

There might be a metric on patterns. This pattern is so far from that pattern. Such a metric might be useful in the case that we did not insist on exact replication. Or in that when we have noise in our data array.

Conclusion

It is possible to come up with a regime which defines a class of patterns and which enables us to build well defined objects on our grid from those patterns which meet our requirements, with, for example, distinct objects being disjoint. It may not be necessary, at least in these early stages, to be much more specific.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument.

Group search key: sra.

Nearly there

Maybe we are nearly there, maybe the first florets will burst into bloom on New Year's Day, just over a week late.

Taken, on this occasion, from the other side, it being misty and no morning sun to bother about out to the right.

Posted, appropriately, after viewing, for what must be at least the second time, episode 6 from series 10 of Midsomer Murders, the episode about camera nuts, one of whom snaps his baked beans every day: 'Picture of Innocence'.

PS: note the distortion of one of the windows. The bay to the left is vertical, while the casement to the right is a regular Tower of Pisa. What is the Lumia up to? Who said that cameras never lied?

Group search key: tfa.

Trolley security

Back in the margins of trolley 53, I noticed the security fitting on one of the front wheels of a Sainsbury's trolley. See reference 1.

Then the other day, in the margins of trolley 61b, noticed at reference 2, I took another look. The security device and the company stamped on the casing seemed to have changed. We now had carttronix on the case, the people at reference 3, who look to be much more obviously in the trolley game than the last lot I noticed. The catch is that their solution does not seem to be quite the one that I see at Sainsbury's.

It comes with a high-vis wheel lock, never seen by me in all my visits to the place, which engages when you try to make off with the trolley. Perhaps also when you try to return one. But it is, I suppose, possible that Sainsbury's is the leading UK operator mentioned - with Epsom being on last year's stuff, with some other tier one store getting this year's stuff. Perhaps I will call in customer services and see if they know anything: a bit of a long shot, but then the girl answering the phone at Kiln Lane did know about the geothermal contraption in the car park. See reference 4.

For those interested in such matters, you can go to reference 3, click on a picture and see the thing in action. It certainly looks to work in the advertisement.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/security.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/trolley-61b.html.

Reference 3: https://www.carttronics.com/.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/digester.html.

Trolley 61b

Recovered from the alley running down the eastern side of the main Sainsbury's building at the Kiln Lane site, the alley which leads to the West Street foot bridge over the line to Waterloo. I only realised when I took it back round front that it was within sight of the security camera, just visible peeping out from behind the far end of the wall, and so disqualified. Hence the a and b numbering of this and the previous post.

A slightly different line taken here than at reference 3, mainly in consideration of the matter to be recorded in the next post.

A reminder of the difficulties that we statisticians have counting things. You might think that, for example, counting apples ought to be straightforward enough, but you can bet that once you start counting a lot of them you will come across apples which you are not sure whether to count or not.

In the same way, in the breadsheet noticed at reference 1, one cannot be truly sure that one is on the 395th batch, as I am sure that if one looked at them carefully, one would find batches which should not perhaps count. I think, for example, that I included in the count the two or three batches of bread made at the adult education course in Molesey noticed at reference 2.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/best-bread.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Henrietta+Parker+Centre.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/trolley-60.html.

Trolley 61a

It was not clear that this trolley was being abandoned by the young lady who had been pushing it in South Street when I first saw it, but when I came back half an hour later it was still there, so I thought I did indeed have salvage rights.

A brand new, fresh from the factory, food hall trolley from (the Epsom) M&S with a new to me white handle to distinguish it from clothing hall trolleys.

About a third of the trolleys in the park at the back of the food hall had these new white handles, so they are clearly in a transition period.

Her voice was ever soft

Just before Christmas, a rare visit to th Barbican for the RSC version of Lear. None of Glenda's cross dressing for me thank you very much.

Decided against Bullingdon on this occasion, not wanting to be encumbered with cycle helmet and consigned to the cloakroom again, so taking directions from some walking in London web site, found it took just about the half hour to walk from Waterloo, as advertised. The city, its  bars and restaurants seemed very quiet, this Friday before Christmas.  Larger building sites all seemed to have shut down.

Theatre full downstairs, mainly but not exclusively older people. Younger portion of the audience irritatingly prone to tittering at the wrong places. They did not seem to understand that old fashioned notions such as faith, allegiance, base and honour were once important. I was also interested by trust coming up; in particular trust amongst thieves, perhaps because I have been reading about the lack of same in Simenon. Or hearing about the same among the Borgias. How are two villains to come to trust each other?

Good set, not too complicated, with entertaining mobiles to point up the planetary spheres. Dress very suitable, vaguely Jacobean without making a meal of it. Thankfully, no transgender stuff either, despite this seeming to be mandatory just presently, but plenty of diversity otherwise, with near half the substantial cast being people of colour - Afro rather than Asian. Including a not very satisfactory, a weak rather than a piratical Edmund. Edgar better.

Sher as Lear serviceable, better at being old than regal, with the regal bits seeming a bit camped up. But all his fault, unlike at reference 1, where I came away thinking that it was all Cordelia's fault.

The words, especially Lear's, were spoken slowly, which made them easier than usual to understand, if a bit destructive of the rhythm. Perhaps the best that one can do with what more or less amounts to a foreign language. Do people do translations rather than adaptations? Running time excluding interval of about three hours, and it felt cut, although the only place I actually caught a cut was in Act V, Scene III, where 'an excellent thing in a woman' was lopped off the line (273) starting 'Gentle and low', presumably deemed sexist in this diversity conscious age.

They managed the duel at the end much better than they did at the Rose. Echoes of the aborted combat at the beginning of Richard II. Another play where the word base carries a lot of weight, albeit in a slightly different sense.

Programme good value for money. Gift shop tasteful but expensive.

The illustration was taken from the gettyimages French department of all places and features Sher as Lear with Troughton as Gloucester. With Troughton better known to me as a splendidly manic drama teacher from an episode of Midsomer Murders. Performance here sound if not inspired, which more or less sums up the production as a whole. But the plays survives, has worn well.

Followed up by a visit to the Wetherspoons' library at Tooting where I failed to make any withdrawals. Reasonably busy, but nothing like the last working day hijinks of my youth.

Two overlapping threes at Earlsfield. I think, without checking, the best score for a little while.

PS: the scrolling algorithm for the displays in the bus stops for London buses could do with some quality time from a decent programmer. Not too clever at all at the moment, at least not in Tooting.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/sponsored-by-julius-bar.html. National, taken twice.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/leery.html. Rose.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/dressing-up.html. Duke of York's. The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead version, as it were. With the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern thing itself to be seen next year.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/henry-iv-part-i-part-ii.html. My last sighting of Sher, as Falstaff.

Bad year for grass

The new daffodil bed, as seen from the terminal carex pendula, looking north. A bed which has not been cut since it was cut in the early summer, after the bulbs had died down. So growth of grass very poor, not enough to keep a rabbit going, never mind the two small horses which live in a back garden a few houses along.

Ants nest has also died down. At the moment, neither ants nor any sign of nocturnal activity.

No signs of any bulbs coming up yet, although we have had some - possibly not daffodils - coming up in the other end of the garden for some weeks now. And I think that these daffodils were showing by this time last year. Blame the global warming! Blame Trump!

But, as can be seen, the carex has seeded or sprouted and my current thought is that I might let some of the seedlings grow. At least they seem to go - and I am a great believer in plants which take to their surroundings and do not need much in the way of care and attention.

Clear up rate

Happening to be strolling up South Street this morning, I noticed the mess in what was the garden attached to the pub called Acorn 30, a garden which had, ages ago, been the site of a substantial tree down, noticed somewhere near here at the time.

Clearly a matter for need to know, so first stop, I tried various likely search terms on reference 3, where the last post is something over four years ago. Second stop, reference 2, where the last post is something less than a year ago. Giving up on both of them, in desperation I tried the current blog, with the search term 'ribena' yielding reference 1 in fairly short order. So just about nine months and I had thought it was years.

But while nine months might be better than nine years, it is still quite a long time to leave all this mess in what could so easily be a fine smoking den. All of which perhaps reflects the fact that the place still has no web site but is up for sale for a paltry £100,000 at reference 4. Doesn't seem much to pay for a whole pub in an expensive area, so perhaps one is only buying furniture, fittings and a short lease.

Maybe it is a listed building and the listers have not been bribed enough for them to give their permission for the place to be converted into (still much needed) flats.

PS: I remember, a long time ago, working with a middle aged painter who got most of his lady friends through Dalton's Weekly, then a popular printed weekly, when classified ads ruled the world and the net had not been invented. Presumably the same lot as at reference 4.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/pinafore.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/.

Reference 4: http://www.daltonsbusiness.com/pubs-for-sale/acorn-30-epsom-surrey-uk/388927.

Best bread

The last batch of bread of the year is now in the airing cupboard, weighing in at a record breaking 5lbs 8.5oz, compared with a nominal 5lbs 7oz. It usually varies up to about half an ounce either way - kitchen scales not being precision instruments - but never as much as this before, in all 395 batches so far, all the way back to the beginning of 2011 when bad back brought cycling to Cheam to an end.

But very steady as regards batch rate, as can be seen from the line graph from the breadsheet snipped left. With the odd kinks sometimes corresponding with the two week summer breaks.

A record breaking morning also in that it is very cold, with the sharpest frost yet. To the point where the lid of the compost dustbin had frozen on, making its lifting with one hand difficult - with the other hand holding a collander full of hot boiled bones and stuff, the last vestiges of the Christmas chicken.

PS: I note in passing that the breadsheet lives in a Dropbox public folder, with Dropbox having served notice just before Christmas that public folders are being withdrawn, effective some point in the year to come. New Year's resolution to organise withdrawal from same indicated. A project for the first half year.

Memories of places

I can now present the next episode of the story started at reference 1. What was one modest caretaker's house plus the sort of garden thought suitable for such a person to grow his sprouts and dahlias in in the late sixties will now become no less than six luxury flats. Hopefully there will be enough left of the garden to park all the dustbins and cars as there are yellow lines on this particular stretch of Longmead Road.

However, discussing the matter later with BH, we had a friendly disagreement about exactly how modest the caretaker's house was. I was punting for a small, two story house with a gently pitched roof while BH was punting for a bungalow. We settled for a bungalow plus dormers. Streetview, however, backs the BH punt.

I am reminded of how often in the past, when a shop went in a street which I thought I knew well, how quickly I forget that shop. And once it is replaced with something else, I do not have a clue a month or two later. Remembering seems to require me to have been a regular customer of the shop (or whatever) in question. And this is nothing to do with getting older, or at least if it is, I have been getting older for a long time. So as to speak.

I have probably been walking past this particular house three or four times a week for at least five years, and cycled past it reasonably often for years before that. And driven past it every time I went to the tip round the corner.

PS: there was a further friendly disagreement about how much of a pain it would be to have a flat, fairly close to a reasonably busy road and fairly close to a middle sized secondary school. But certainly handy for the Alzheimer's unit more or less next door the other way.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/in-olden-days.html.

Reference 2: http://www.careuk.com/care-homes/appleby-house-epsom.

How much is information?

Musings about information content on this morning’s Ewell Village anti-clockwise.

Google suggests that the picture left – forest fire – is the product of a cellular automaton, and there are plenty of similar pictures about. Not least in the fat book about the things by Stephen Wolfram, a book which I started but never got very far into, despite the claims made for the powers of these automata.

My musings concerned the information content of such a picture. On the one hand, to get reasonable resolution from an array of pixels you might need more than a quarter of a million bytes. Maybe you can get that down a bit if you apply jpeg algorithms which filter out any obvious regularities.

But you can really get it down if you have access to the input to the cellular automaton which produced it. I have no idea how much input was need to generate this picture, but Wolfram shows pictures of similar complexity generated by just a few tens of bits of input. To which you have to add however many bits are needed to specify the automaton itself. Maybe you only start to see serious savings when you have lots of such pictures.

Another example of the same sort of thing might be the not very many instructions which are needed to generate as many digits of (the transcendental number) pi as you want. Millions of the things. Millions which would occupy lots of bytes if the best you could do was just copy them down into a data array.

From where I associate to the small black disc on a white ground used as an example by Giulio Tononi in his book called ‘Phi’. A picture also involving a few tens of bits of input to some suitable drawing package, but on the face of it containing a lot less information. But with there being lots in the drawing package and lots more in the display software.

From all of which one might deduce that quantifying the information content of a picture is a tricky business. Perhaps it is all relative, depending on your point of view. Perhaps the chaps who do Kolmogorov complexity have all the answers – with Li & Vitányi’s substantial book on the subject being yet another book I have not got as far into as I would have liked. This despite the start of the wikipedia entry looking innocuous enough: ‘In algorithmic information theory ... the Kolmogorov complexity of an object, such as a piece of text, is the length of the shortest computer program (in a predetermined programming language) that produces the object as output. It is a measure of the computational resources needed to specify the object, and is also known as descriptive complexity... The notion of Kolmogorov complexity can be used to state and prove impossibility results akin to Cantor's diagonal argument, Gödel's incompleteness theorem, and Turing's halting problem’.

PS: I notice that the forest fire flickers in an odd way when you scroll it slowly up (or down) the screen, using the chevron at the bottom right of the display rather than clicking around the brick. Presumably some artefact of the display software, rather than of the underlying image.

A first selfie

A first selfie, taken to celebrate being able to dress up as a supporter of Manchester City, with a real scarf, authenticated as having been sold by the Official Manchester City Supporters Club Shop, to be found at reference 1.

I was quite impressed with myself, with it only taking about five minutes, without much help from Cortana, to work out how to work the backward facing camera - confusingly called forward facing in some of the documentation she turned up.

I associate to my days in university residence in what is now called Outer Fitzrovia, when a number of fellow residents came from Manchester and the surrounding area, usually supporters of either United or City, although there may have been a few Rugby League renegades. I believe at that time there was a religious angle with City being papists and United being prots - or the other way around. Perhaps some consequence of a large Irish contingent in the town.

I also remember my own brief visit to the town at around the same time, a time when great swathes of terrace houses to the south of town centre had been swept away to make room for modern flats in towers, with running water and inside sanitation. A sweeping away which had left rather a desolate landscape, certainly early evening, which is when I recall seeing it. More or less a desert. With the towers which came later now being swept away in their turn.

PS: resolution  on this side of the telephone piffling, with this snap only 350Kb or so, compared with the 5Mb or so on the other side. Not nearly enough to work out what the black splodge on my shoulder might be.

Reference 1: https://www.mancity.com/.

Present

The white box being a present from the EU, delivered just two days ago.

A very intelligent metre, with a relay on the hall stand, which can tell us, minute by minute, hour by hour, how much electricity we are using and how much money we are spending. I imagine that the wifi network involved is fairly elementary and that the CIA or GRU would have no trouble hacking in and listening in to our electricity traffic. Whether, for example, we were in or out.

A present from the EU in the sense that we buy our electricity (by default) from EDF which is French and the new metre was installed, in about ten minutes flat, by a cheerful, youngish lady electrician from Romania. A first for us - but something which I was told about years ago in the TB, when the Polish plumbers first moved in. Starting at the bottom and working up, only a matter of time before they get to my trade and start forcing down the day rates - my informant being a (fully time served) electrician.

Fail 2

It didn't make it, although the florets are on the move and they are just starting to open. We have hopes that it will make it for the New Year.

Group search key: tfa.

Fail 1

Time for another whole plant snap of the aloe. Flower stem visible running up the second panes from the left of the window, as seen in the snap. Fourth from the left in real life. Inflorescence nearly lost in the frontal hawthorns. Will next year be a good year for its flowers?

On the basis that it is vaguely biennial, with good years and bad years, the snap at reference 1 from 2014 would suggest it is a bad year to come. Nothing else on the record, for or against.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/hawthorne.html.

Group search key: tfa.

Goldberg

The last Wigmore of the year turned out to be the Goldberg Variations from Mahan Esfahani. Both seconds in the senses that I have now heard Goldberg twice this year, the first occasion being noticed at reference 1 and that I have heard Esfahani twice altogether, the first occasion, as a friend of Natalie Clein, being noticed at reference 2.

Excellent performance, which left me wondering why ever one would try to play the thing on a piano. Most unsuitable. Attention maintained maybe 66% of the time, quite high for me; maybe Bach's number games strikes some important inner chord. With part of this being that at several points I was reminded of the drone of the bagpipes, and at several other points I was reminded of the sound of single notes plucked on a guitar.

A wooden harpsicord, that is to say the wood had just been stained and/or varnished, none of the black lacquer which one expects from a Steinway. And none of your painted panels, the sort of thing you see, for example, in 'A Young Woman seated at a Virginal' at the National Gallery. I was reminded of the grain of elm, but perhaps something tropical is more likely. The music seemed to me to be at the wrong angle for comfort, but I think most of the time it was just a prop. And Esfahani chose to sit on a chair rather than a piano stool. Perhaps piano stools are only for pianos.

About 80 minutes without an interval, the absence of which seemed absolutely right on this occasion. In which connection, see the discussion of repeats at reference 1.

Esfahani did not care, quite rightly to my mind, to give an encore, with the Goldbergs themselves being one large encore, but he wanted to do something and so he gave us a little talk, from which I have taken away the reminder that there is always something new to be found in good music, even when, as in his case, he has performed this particular piece maybe a hundred times. A veritable Bostridge of the Bach - see reference 3. He also contributed some nice notes to the programme; clearly a thoughtful sort of chap, with a pleasantly self-effacing stage manner.

As for the margins, at Epsom we had the first heavily graffitied train that I have seen for a long time. A full-on composition that must have taken some time and money - on paint - with these particular vandals not being destitute. Let's hope Southwest Trains can keep on top of them.

The shimmering art work on the outside walls of Debenhams continue to please. Both clever and understated; none of the gross exhibitionism featured in so much modern art.

While at Earlsfield it was rather cloudy and I thought I was going to score a duck. Then, aeroplane one swung out of the off-piste to the north into the flight path down to Heathrow, followed by aeroplane two dropping out of the cloud on-piste to the right, easily spotted by the glare of its headlights in the cloud. Thus closing the proceedings with a sneaky two.

Home to peer at my Urtext edition from Germany, from which I was able to learn something of the conventions for marking rests when writing more than two lines on music on just two staves. I also found some excellent music theory notes at reference 4. From all of which arose another oddity of the workings of the mind. I had completely forgotten that the treble and bass clefs were named for treble and bass voices, and that there were other clefs. Preoccupied with other matters, the brain had left the origins of the terms behind. But the big take-away was that it looked terribly difficult to play, running at times to four lines of music running on four lines of rhythm. From where I associate to my clarinet teacher, from back when I went in for a bout of music making, who sometimes doubted whether I had any sense of rhythm at all.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/goldberg.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/coped-with-modern.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/winterreises-old-and-new.html.

Reference 4: http://musictheoryblog.blogspot.co.uk/.

Stump

One of the stumps mentioned in the last post. Note the ring of plugs. Note also the large blocks of stone, some of which look like granite to me, rather than anything local. Presumably left over from some job or other during the tenancy of the building contractor.

Readers will have to decide for themselves what colour to call the paint. I go for green.

More trios

Last Sunday to Wigmore Hall for more trios: Beethoven Op.70 No.1 and Schubert D.898, given on this occasion by what I take to be a scratch trio, put together for the purpose.

Cold and misty morning, but the contractors were already busy in what used to be a building contractor's yard at the entrance to Station Approach. Two vans, with a double barreled name which I had never heard of before, so I suspected a gang-master under contract to one of the fragments of what was British Rail. The gang was busy with chain saws chopping down all the trees growing out of the top of the wall propping up the railway embankment, capping off the stumps with some kind of green paint. Plus they we pushing rings of white plastic plugs into each stump, the sort of plug which one might otherwise use for a fixing in masonry. I supposed they were pouring more of the green paint down the plugs, with the intention of killing off the stump. Never seen such a thing before.

Further entertainment on the train in the form of a small party of young men dressed up as penguins, on their way, so they said, to a darts tournament at Alexandra Palace. They thought that the palace would probably be licensed for the occasion. Then, at Wimbledon, a mixed party on the platform dressed as elves.

At Vauxhall, they seemed to have finished wrapping the cubical building, ten stories or so, possibly the new US embassy, with the finished building looking rather odd. Must take a look from closer quarters.

Oxford Circus seemed quiet enough, it now being around 1100, but All Bar One was busy and, not getting served with sufficient speed, we passed up on their smarties and made used of the nearby Starbucks instead. The first time I have used one - outside of motorway service areas - for a very long time, having some obscure prejudice against them. But this one was perfectly satisfactory, pleasant and lively without being crowded or noisy. The prejudice remains obscure - but perhaps nothing more than jealousy of the swift rise of this company, from nothing not so many years ago.

Trios very good; clearly a form it would be worth getting better acquainted with - there being, I believe, lots of them. Presumably popular in musical families of two hundred years ago. Full house, enthusiastic.

Lunch at Pontis, very satisfactory as ever. A sort of thin pizza described as garlic bread with mozzarella to start, very good, followed by lasagne followed by tiramisu washed with a spot of amaretto. The tiramisu came in a bowl, while I remembered bricks of the stuff, but our waitress assured us that there had been no recent change of format and it tasted fine. Main business washed down with an Italian sauvignon blanc.

Wound up the proceedings by our Christmas visit to John Lewis, where we managed to lose each other, not realising that there were two lots of escalators up the middle. Maybe there used to be two light wells, not just the one. Maybe BH should learn how to use her mobile phone against emergencies of this sort. We eventually got to the cheese department, to find that they did indeed have Poacher, a snip at £13 the kilogram - a lot cheaper than it used to be in their Epsom shop, so perhaps they really are running down on the real cheese. I'll just be left with the Neal's Yard people. In the meantime, it was a very cheerful lady who served us, a lady who reminded me of the manic singer in the 'Funnybones' in a television adaptation of the Agatha story 'Sleeping Murder'. Not bad at all for the middle of what was probably a busy afternoon.

However, I must have been looking my age as a young man tried to give me his seat on the tube. Probably foreign.

PS: a chance picture in the Evening Standard has confirmed that the cube will be the US embassy.

Reference 1: http://www.pontis.co.uk/.

Open season

We declared the Christmas Season open this morning by taking half a Slomers white pudding (from Manor Green Road) between us, cooked in rape seed oil as a compromise on the cholesterol front and taken with a little twice cooked potato. This last being boiled first time around and fried second.

The current plan is to finish it off tomorrow morning. The first such pudding for some time - but I don't think it could be the first since that noticed at reference 2, back in 2008.

Reference 1: http://www.slomers.co.uk/. Which site appears to have been created since the post at reference 2.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=white+pudding+moretonhampstead+news.

Will it get there?

Not looking good. The Christmas cactus (schlumbergera truncata) in the extension, which gets very little natural light at all, has been in fine, deep pink flower for about a week now. But the chances of this aloe vera being in flower at all on the big day are not looking too good.

The inflorescence is still on the move, at what must be of the order of millimetres a day, but the flower buds still show no sign of actually opening up. No sign either of anything but yellow being involved.

On the other hand, as well as moving up, the flower head also moves around with the sun, with it bowing to the left in the morning and the right in the afternoon. Just like a sunflower.

PS: the record suggests that the flower head has been growing for a bit more than 30 days now and this evening it perhaps 65cm long. So just about two millimetres a day, on average. Spurts when the central heating is on and the sun is out.

Group search key: tfa.

Cook's tours

A little while ago I acquired an old copy of Cook's Traveller's Handbook to the Rivieras of France and Italy. I had thought that I had noticed the acquisition, but the best I could do in the first instance, associating through the not dissimilar Red Guides from Ward Locke, is reference 1. But then, persisting, I struck gold at reference 2.

It has turned out to be well worth its £5, offering a view of the Riverias such as may have been experienced by the likes of Agatha, Hercule and Simenon. And it did indeed come in useful when reading 'Liberty Bar', set in Cannes and nearby Antibes. See reference 3.

A small book, arranged more or less along the principal railway lines, getting as far as Leghorn, via Ventimiglia (this last said to be good for sufferers from Bright's disease). Without pictures of any sort, but including a number of maps and plans, printed in two or three colours on rather odd paper, a sort of cross between waxed paper and greaseproof. Presumably, in 1927, inserted by hand into the regular pages.

It includes various nice gobbets of history. A thumbnail sketch of Marshall Masséna on account of his having been born in Nice, the chap responsible for the name of one of the sections of the boulevard running around Paris, just inside the Périphérique. An account of the marital custom called cicisbeo of the same place, whereby married ladies were allowed to take gentlemen friends for support and entertainment. It was considered very bad form for the husbands to show any irritation, let alone anger about this, although the ladies sometimes found that gays suited the purpose well: attentive, entertaining and undemanding. Another attraction of the custom from their point of view was that one could change one's cicisbeo then rather like one might change one's bathroom now. And like the husband, he was expected to put a good face on his expulsion. Perhaps on his loss of much needed free lunches. All to be found on and around page 206, should you chance upon a copy for yourself.

And lastly, in among gobbets about the complicated medieval history of the south of France, I came across the lady who made wife of Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou, a lady who was rather rubbished by the English lords on account of her relatively lowly origins. At least I am sure she was in one of the versions we have seen recently, possibly that at the Rose noticed at reference 4, possibly one of the two TV versions of the same cycle acquired subsequently. Whereas, I learn from this guide that she was the daughter of René of Anjou (1409–1480), also known as René I of Naples and Good King René, the chap who was count of Piedmont, Duke of Bar (1430–80), Duke of Lorraine (1431–53), Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence (1434–80), King of Naples (1435–42; titular 1442–80), titular King of Jerusalem (1438–80) and Aragon including Sicily, Majorca and Corsica (1466–80). So as far as pedigree went, more than good enough for a sometimes mad king with a tainted claim to his throne.

René was not a particularly successful king and is now more remembered for his contributions to learning and the arts. His daughter was not behind in that department either, despite her worldly, sometimes successful and ultimately unsuccessful ways in the Wars of the Roses, being foundress or perhaps patroness of Queen's College, Cambridge.

However, checking with the proper text (of the first part of King Henry VI), I find the treatment there of René more even handed, there called Reignier. So perhaps memory defective once again. Perhaps I have conflated story lines, or even stories. See particularly scenes III, IV and V of Act V. Story concluded at the beginning of the second part, a conclusion which includes a rather good pun about the suffocation of Suffolk (Margaret's cicisbeo, as it were) from the Duke of York. Whereas actually he has his head hacked off by pirates a couple of acts later.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/bognor-books.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/just-back-from-short-break-at-lamb-at.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/friday-trivia.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/part-one-of-three.html.

Big tweet

Around 1300 Thursday, we had some kind of a hawk flying over our back garden, not that much higher than the trees at the back of the back garden. Looked about the same size as a big crow.

It did not hang around, making just the one pass, but I did catch it on the monocular long enough to tweet a forked tail, something like that of the red kite illustrated left and turned up by google. Plus a flash of a reddy-brown underneath.

Given that a lot of common hawks - for example kestrels, sparrow hawks and buzzards - do not have forked tails, maybe it really was a kite. Can't remember when - if ever - I last saw such a thing.

Jelly lichen

The mild, damp weather has encouraged the jelly lichen to make a modest, winter appearance. Snapped on the back patio this morning. See reference 1 for the spring appearance.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/jelly-lichen.html.

Microsoft

Various Microsoft irritations to report, following the major irritation noticed at reference 1.

First, without any invitation from myself, the colours used in the calendar changed and the colours used to mark various errors of spelling and grammar changed. With unannounced changes of this sort always making me worry about whether some sensible default setting or other has come unstuck. Or, shock horror, something deep to do with synchronisation has broken.

Second, I noticed that calendar entries which took place more than a few weeks ago get deleted. So it is not possible, for example, to check when you went on holiday last summer. Google suggests that people have been moaning about this for years, without effect.

Third, I am finding the errors of grammar which are getting flagged a bit tiresome. Some of them are fair enough, help one get away without careful proof reading, helpful even, but some of them are very obscure, possibly implementing some obscure rule of grammar, but not relevant to the 21st century. One is then stuck with having irritating blue double underlinings all over the place or turning the feature off altogether. Which doesn't seem very clever either.

Maybe Microsoft have got too clever here, trying to check things which are more a matter of taste and style than rules, and would do better to pull back a bit. Are they trying to enforce the sort of dull, corporate English which they might well insist on in internal communications on the rest of us?

PS: maybe not such a big deal for those who have access to good quality corporate IT support functions who understand all this user facing stuff and can deal with what can be dealt with for you. In any event, to explain what is going on when they dump some update on you. But not so clever for the private punter like myself.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/grumpy-user.html.

Tipperary

I have been reading, on a rather stop-go basis, a book about how Ireland got its independence after the First World War. By one Maurice Walsh, who spins things out a bit, but tells an interesting enough story along the way. I share two factlets about Tipperary.

First, the famous song about the place was composed overnight by a music hall gent. for a bet before the First World War, was made famous by a famous tenor of the time, sold tens of thousands of copies in sheet music form (so presumably a good earner for someone) and became one of the most popular songs of both the British and French armies on the Western Front.

Second, one of the first blows for independence after the war, that is to say after the British had already conceded the point in principle (having finally struck down the forces of reaction in the then hereditary House of Lords), but who did not care to be pushed, was the murder of two Irish policemen on a routine detail to guard the (horse drawn) transport of some gelignite from the barracks in Tipperary to a nearby quarry. The policemen in question were local men, quite possibly the sons of local farmers who had thought that life as country policemen, looking after drunks, poaching and stolen livestock might be a softer option than slaving away in the fields. Most of Ireland was shocked by this brutal murder of two more or less innocent men - but it served to set the tone for the brutality, savagery and murders which were to come in the years that followed.

I should perhaps add that the police in the Ireland of the time were rather closer to being soldiers than was the case in the mainland. They were armed and lived in (mostly small) barracks. Nevertheless, out in the country and troubles aside, much like country policemen everywhere.

Duffel coat

Getting on for two years ago now, I thought that the leather thongs which hold my duffel coat together we getting a bit worn, so visited Rouleaux to see what they could do, a visit noticed at reference 1.

Then a couple of weeks ago I thought again, even to the point of visiting a shop which does repairs in Ewell Village, where the chap would do a job, but he thought that only leather would do. And not shoe leather at that.

Then a couple of days ago, one of the thongs actually broke and I was pushed into action. Did I really want to stump up £400 for a new one when this one was only seven years old? Did I want to stump up £200 for the man in Ewell Village to do a job?

No. I would use the brown cord purchased for the purpose myself, with the result illustrated. With the messy bits on the left being the frayed ends of the cord, both carefully secured with figure of eight knots, just visible. Very soft and supple to the feel, I thought quite possibly silk - used, as I recall - for the ropes intended to be used for the hanging of the aristocracy in the olden days. After use, cut up for sale for use in some superstitious practise in the country - I think Hardy tells of some such thing in one of his stories.

Secured at the back with two buttons - which, whoever put the leather thongs on, had not bothered with, making it a lot harder to remove the old stitching that it would otherwise have been. Not a great job, but serviceable, and I think that I shall persist. And that I shall get better at it as I go along. Maybe I will get the time down from the hour or so it took to do this first one. If I do one from time to time, or when a thong goes, I should get through all eight of them before the end of the coming winter. Buying of new coat deferred for another year.

And I pleased to be able to report that BH was able to lay her hands on two sorts of the packing thread discussed at reference 2 in no time at all.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-leather-thongs-which-hold-toggles.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=packing+thread.

For the record - 2

Last week also saw what will probably be our last visit to Polesden Lacey of the old year.

Rather surprised by the large number of cars in the car park in the middle of this rather cold and dull winter morning. I suppose a mixture of people: there to walk their dogs. drawn to the house, decorated for Christmas, to the shop, newly stocked with Christmas goods (some of which are illustrated left) or to one of the cafeterias.

We were not allowed around the house by ourselves as there were not enough trusties available to guard all the rooms, but we were able to take a tour, mainly consisting of a talk. I thought the lady doing it did rather well, although I suspected the hand of the talkative, recently retired gent. on the desk in the words. The subject was a Christmas house party at Polesden - the stuff of many an Agatha mystery - but the words seemed a bit grand and learned for the lady, who looked and sounded as if she might have been a teacher before she turned up here. We learned, for example, that the house was more up to date than Downton Abbey, with electric bells having replaced bell pulls and with many of the guests bedrooms sporting en-suites, the height of luxury at the time, between the two wars. And the Glasgow brewer who made all the money to pay for it all was more in evidence than I would have expected. Is there no end to the fascination of middling people such as our ourselves for the goings on of our betters?

During our subsequent stint in the shop, apart from wondering whether it was stocked by the coach house people noticed at reference 1, I was pleased to see that they carried gift wrapped apple juice from the Chegworth Valley people noticed at reference 2. It's a small world in the gifts business.

The closing fish shop was noticed at reference 3 et seq.

PS: only just realised that the cottage we stay in in Ashburton is, appropriately, called the coach house.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/gifts.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/power-play.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/titbits.html.

For the record - 1

A quick visit to the Barrowboy & Banker at London Bridge last week, the occasion for two Bullingdons. Probably more banker than barrow boy on this occasion, but busy and with the usually very efficient service, only slightly slowed down by a bar man who seemed to be on his first shift. Not up to speed at all. Perhaps they were short handed for the festive season.

I took my first Bullingdon from the very top of the ramp at Waterloo, not pausing to take a picture on this occasion as I was a little late. Off down Stamford Street. over to Southwark Street to drop off at the stand at the Hop Exchange, where I made it with a couple of minutes to spare. Fastest way to do the trip known to man.

Scored two Hanson mixer trucks and two long flat beds, one full of rebars, on the way. Nothing gets in the way of important city building works.

Same journey back, except that I had to drop off at Waterloo 2 rather than Waterloo 3. Plus an odd green light flickering in front on me as I cycled along in the dark, which turned out to be a green bicycle projected by the front light of the Bullingdon. Rather disconcerting. Did the light look like a green bicycle to oncoming traffic, to warn them to make way for a very important two-wheeled traveler?

Breaking the train journey at Earlsfield, I was pleased to score a quick two, more or less immediately on return to the platform, only disappointed that I was not able to convert it to a three, with the third aeroplane coming into view just a few seconds too late.

PS: the snip above, taken today from the TFL web site, suggests that it has taken me a year to notice this important upgrade to the network.

Headway House

Once upon a time there used to be a company called Bytes living in Ewell Village, a company which I think used to specialise in supplying networks and computers to medium sized businesses in the area. In premises which is now a hairdresser or perhaps a beauty salon. At some point, after we moved into the area thirty years ago, they moved into larger premises at Chessington Road, a little to the east of Ewell West railway station. Quite recently they moved again from there to new premises in Leatherhead and their old premises were converted into flats, now called Headway House, by a company called Niblock Construction, the name, as it happens, of a longtime neighbour. It may have been called that before; there is certainly a road called 'The Headway' behind.

My belief is that Bytes was a one or two man start-up in the 1970's and has grown to be part of some larger empire, but is still trading under their original name. See reference 1.

I may have got the history of the company all wrong, and it turns out yesterday that I had certainly got Headway House all wrong. The snap left is part of their boundary wall and closer inspection of the hole revealed that it is a chimney, not a doorway half blocked by a rising forecourt. From which we deduce that the building which is on the site now bears little relation to what was there in the past. Must have walked past the thing hundreds of times and never noticed it before.

All compounded by misbehaviour on the gmaps front. If you paste what I think is the postal address of Headway House into gmaps - 'Headway House, 15 Chessington Road, Ewell, Epsom KT17 1TS' - you get taken to the current premises of Bytes in Leatherhead. While if you just type in the postcode bit, you get taken to West Ewell, the real home of the postcode in question. To add insult to injury, if you try to zoom in on the satellite view to see if that offers any clues to the history of the building, you get flipped into street view. A street view which seems to come with a lot more rotation than I had bargained for. Perhaps I am too old for the product.

PS: very much the area which was the subject of the dispute noticed at reference 2.

Reference 1: http://www.bytes.co.uk.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/never-mind-runway-feel-backland.html.

Belcea

Sunday evening a week ago to London, to the Wigmore Hall, to hear the Belcea Quartet, the same people who put on our end of term concent just about a year ago, noticed at reference 1. On this occasion for two Schubert quartets (D.87 and D.810) and two Penderecki quartets (No.2 and No.4).

It was Epsom's day for engineering works on the Waterloo line and there was still talk of Southern disturbances on the Victoria line. The journey planner alleged that this added around half an hour to the journey to Waterloo and so, after some quite lengthy (but perfectly good tempered) discussion, we went with them, taking a rather bumpy bus from Epsom to Raynes Park, to entrain from there.

Oxford Circus was very busy. as was the Regent Street All-Bar-One, which last we sometimes use for tea, coffee and smarties on a Sunday morning. While the seats which used to be outside BHS failed us, courtesy of barrow boy Green, so we took our picnic on the north western corner of Cavendish Square, where there happens to be a park bench outside of the park perimeter.

Inside the three quarter filled hall, the team had the same red-trimmed jackets as last time, rather casual, while the the first violin had a new but equally flashy dress as last time. BH remained unimpressed. They were all playing from what looked like Apple notepads, still not something that we see very often. Not that they appeared to be making much use of them, playing largely from memory. Something which I have noticed perhaps two or three times before, but which I have failed to turn up this morning. Perhaps I will do better later.

Both the Schuberts were very good, with D.810 (death and the maiden) being as good as I recall hearing it. The first Penderecki was interesting, very modern, while the fourth was much more traditional. And it being the world première of this last, the great man turned out in person to hear it, sitting about ten rows back in the right hand aisle. Ascended the stage to take some applause. A neat looking, older gent.with a neat beard, not a floridly arty type with long waving hair at all.

Out to inspect the lights in Oxford Street, including a badger themed display at John Lewis. All very thoroughly done, very clever, with someone clearly having given it a lot of TLC; but at the same time rather overdone, a bit lifeless, not much spirit of Christmas about it. Furthermore, the someone concerned was perhaps unaware of the role of badgers in keeping down the hedgehog population and in keeping up the tuberculosis population. Not really very cuddly at all. But I share a snippet: it seems that badger setts can be very old, maybe hundreds of years old, and can spread over quite large areas. Maybe rivaling, in that regard at least, those very large fungi which spread out underground and which are sometimes described as being the largest living things on the planet.

On the way home, we tried the Wimbledon option, just missing a bus and having to wait half an hour. But the bus when it came was much grander than that we had caught into London and came complete with a very cheerful driver. A grand bus with configurable seats; that is to say they appeared to be fitted in tracks and could be moved up and down the bus, or removed altogether without much bother at all. Rearrange to suit the needs of an important football team or whatever. There was also a satnav, which the driver appeared to be using, probably never having driven this particular route before. A wheeze which I imagine makes it much easier to staff up these relief buses, moving as they do all over London. I though the satnav, which we could hear, did pretty well, with good directions at roundabouts and junctions - but I would have liked some reassuring noises on long stretches between. You are now passing a large red garage on your right sort of thing, just to provide some reassurance that one was still on course.

Overall, around an hour and a half was added to our outing. Rather a lot for an evening outing, not something one would want to make a habit of. But well worth it on this occasion.

PS: diligent search has revealed that the magic words are 'score ipad'. See references 2 and 3. I notice also that I said nothing about score or ipad at reference 1 - so presumably this quartet has seen the electric light, as it were, in the course of the year just past.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ultimate-visit.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/old-favourite.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/dorking-time-again.html.

Truck

This image turned up on the Facebook page of one of my namesakes. But what it is? A cursory search failed to turn up anything like it, with the logo 'DaHaTa' not drawing any hits at all.

At reference 1, the tanker trailers on offer did not sport anything like as many axles. While in real life, I can only remember seeing mobile cranes and hard-core low loaders. To the point that we used to run competitions with the sprogs on long car journeys to see who could spot the vehicle with the most axles. And when they got older, with the most wheels, it being harder to count wheels, as it is hard to get the number of wheels to the axle from a quick glance from an awkward angle.

Was the truck used for carrying liquid mercury, seriously heavy stuff - with a cubic metre coming in at a bit less than 15,000 kg - which would indeed need plenty of axles? Was it actually a cover for moving missiles about? Bit unlikely, as even disguised missiles would come with some kind of serious escort, even if that also was disguised.

PS: Christmas jolly from this side of the pond to be found at reference 2.

Reference 1: http://www.senecatank.com/distribution-trailers.html.

Reference 2: https://www.youtube.com/embed/H965m0Hkk5M#t=14.

More flower

Flower buds at the base of the inflorescence starting to spread out a bit, still looking yellow. But early day yet, with BH betting on an orangy-yellow when they eventually open out.

With the height of the flower compared with that of the plant reminding us of some much larger plants - succulents or cacti - which we used to see on Tenerife, with a huge black flower shoot towering over the plant, maybe 10 feet or more or it. With this one being just the one foot or so, so far.

Group search key: tfa.

Waste

I was reminded today of the waste of materials in the course of building works, with the medley illustrated being taken from the skip being filled as the contractors tidy up a near finished building along East Street.

The shaped wooden plank, one of a dozen or more, clearly from some endangered species in a tropical rain forest. No idea what it would have been intended for.

A small selection of plastic pipe fittings, one of which is illustrated here.

Large numbers of electrical fittings, mostly stamped for Virgin Media. I could have had dozens of the square plates, presumably inspection covers for some Virgin junction or other, complete with the requisite screws taped to the underside. Quite good quality, better than Wickes own brand.

All now stashed away in the garage, just in case. Would have cost me £20 in Travis Perkins up the road?

I associate to stories from the early seventies of contractors digging big holes in quiet spots, on the edge of building sites, towards the end of big projects and backfilling them with all kinds of brand new ironmongery, fixtures and fittings. Didn't judge it worth their while to sort it all out and send it along to the next project. This skip was quite modest by comparison.